The Guardian at it again with its Coalition Echo Chamber - that's it have had enough and will stop buying this paper

Ed's tenure is a vanity project for which the British people will pay a terrible price in 2015.

As I have commented elsewhere, at one point this morning his abstraction went so far as referring to himself in the third person. To me this and his statements of self-belief sound more American than British: is this an echo of his time at Harvard ?

Is this journalism?

I think you're over-egging the SPAD thing; the 'I say to you' declarative is a tic of the British political class, going back at least as far as Major. Blair used it all the time, as did Brown.

It reflects more the fact that Miliband has been looking at speeches all his life from the perspective of an insider, where this language is the lingua franca, rather than from outside it, where people think it makes the speaker sound like a complete gibbon.

Oh give it a bloody rest. We have about 8 other papers to launch stupid attacks on the guy, at least one could stretch to defending him.

I'm not fan of Ed Miliband - to put it mildly - but the thing that struck me most about his interview this morning was that John Humphrys wouldn't let him get a bloody word in edgeways.

Miliband barely got to finish a single sentence before Humphrys butted in.

Perhaps he adopts a similar style when interviewing other party leaders - in which case he should stop, because it's a complete waste of time.

These daily forensic dissections of Miliband - to the exclusion of all else (including any close examination of those actually running/ruining the country) - are beginning to look just a little bit sinister.

Oh give me a break! Honestly, if you cant publish something worth reading then dont bother, this is a lazy piece that continues on the supporting the coalition and bashing the opposition theme..... so tired!

or to put it another way, you may be the guardian but you still manage (on occasion) to sound like the Sun!

Dear Mr RedRush - please do! We all have, my dear. As an elderly lady, it is far nicer to see it all on the online spaces and carp!

That's an interesting point, I hadn't noticed it in other politicians too. If others did use this language as much as Miliband does, wonder why it jars with him?

I think it is the influence of Tony Blair who says stuff like 'I say to people everywhere...' So many of his sentences began with this weird formulation 'I say to people...' that it became an emblem of insincerity.

At least Humphreys is consistent... my colleague Dan Sabbagh has written about it here http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2012/jan/10/humphrys-miliband-ugly-today-programme

ouch

Wouldn't say this was forensic, more instinctive! We give Ed Miliband a far fairer hearing than any other paper (see Saturday and today's splashes) and I think manage to hold the coalition to account. Nothing sinister...

I'm not sure whether it's important or not. Part of me thinks that only people who think and care about language, such as journalists, would ever notice.

This.

Do you get satisfaction writing such articles?

I suspect he might be referring to what he believes in an abstract way because he doesn't actually have any firm beliefs. Just a thought - he is a politician, after all.

Ed Miliband deserves the chance to lead us into the new millennium!!

WHY are people so NASTY to this GREAT man!? He LEARNED everything he knows from the MASTER Gordon Brown!! He WILL make a FANTASTIC PM!!

Give him a break - what is he supposed to say when asked about cuts he would make?! Tell the truth!!?! What is is supposed to say when asked to apologise for labours mistakes - SORRY WE GOT IT SO WRONG!?! Hahahahaha.... He'd NEVER get into Downing Street then!!

Miliband is the man for me and you should BACK HIM or BACK OFF Guardian!!

Your defence is laughable. So because the Guardian gives Ed a 'far fairer hearing' it is ok to write such pointless rubbish? Criticise him, no one is saying don't. This however, is not criticism, it's more akin to a classroom bully fabricating reasons to attack.

You're reading it online, not buying it.

The simple question is, given that even the Guardian is sucking at the corporate cock of Conservative government - if not Milliband, then whom?

Should Labour have another leadership election, perhaps with a revised voting system, there's every chance they'd vote in another bloody Blatcherite who's even less distinguishable from Cameron than Tory-lite Ed.

Caruut is so right.

We have an even more destructive government in the Coaltion than Margaret Thatcher. An uncontrolled banking crisis, democracy under increasing threat and war-mongering against Iran; Public services the NHS and Education are being privatised; Sick and Disabled people's benefits are being cut by 20% #spartacusreport; Climate change and Peak oil ignored.

The only currently feasible option is the LP. Ed has set the agenda about the 'squeezed middle' and 'predatory capitalism' (I would prefer him to go much further).. but overwhelmingly the Guardian gives space to the failed politics and politicians of New Labour.

Why is there this sniping about Ed M's voice, eyes, use of language? The Tories can just get on with asset stripping the UK because the only vaguely left wing mainstream outlet is attacking/undermining Ed M for them.

Caruut

Oh give it a bloody rest. We have about 8 other papers to launch stupid attacks on the guy, at least one could stretch to defending him.

llerbag

These daily forensic dissections of Miliband - to the exclusion of all else (including any close examination of those actually running/ruining the country) - are beginning to look just a little bit sinister.

I think the attacks on Milliband are born out of frustration rather than any other agenda. The coalition is wreaking havoc on the country and Labour is signally failing to land any punches or make any headway. A two-point lead in the polls is shameful in the current climate.

And yes, the problem is Milliband. And the way he speaks. A true conviction politician simply wouldn't flannel the way he does. He speaks like an Oxbridge debater trying to impress the faculty rather than a leader of a political party trying to reach out to ordinary people.

Say what you like about Cameron , his clipped, mincing patronising delivery is perfect for the pushy, snobby, nimby Tories who vote for him. Can you honestly say that Milliband speaks to the ordinary man or woman in the street? Thatcher could, Wilson could, Blair could. Major and Brown couldn't and Milliband can't.

Believe it or not, it is important. Leaders who can't inspire people don't succeed no matter how intelligent they are. If people don't feel you're speaking to them or for them, they won't vote for you.

Look at the polls. Cameron is much more popular than his party. Milliband is much less popular than his. Ed is the problem. Ignoring the problem is not going to make it go away.

Foreigners and those of a foreign background often make these sorts of mistake in English For those native speakers that criticise, I am afraid it is a mild form of racism!

'Wouldn't say this was forensic, more instinctive! We give Ed Miliband a far fairer hearing than any other paper (see Saturday and today's splashes) and I think manage to hold the coalition to account. Nothing sinister...'

It looks to me more like part of a sustained campaign to undermine the man, particularly when this sort of journalistic candyfloss is taking the place of any incisive examination of government policy failures - for example the £30bn Whitehall blowout audit the paper barely mentioned yesterday. I'm not even a Labour voter, but when I see the press pulling all the stops out to vilify a politician, I wonder whose interests their possible election victory might threaten.

only people who think and care about language, such as journalists, would ever notice.

Do all journalists? We don't always get that impression. That aside, just as much as journalists, every politician should think and care about language.

It's Biblical: "I say unto you, verily, the next Labour government, if it's elected in 2015 will inherit a deficit."

I first noticed it with Tony Blair-a lot. Cameron has followed suit. So, I say to you, you are nitpicking and bullying.

I also say to you-have you noticed whenever something you want to listen to (like the young guy speaking live on the BBC news about ten minutes ago who looked like he had something to say) there are sound problems? Am I going mad? Paranoid? Honestly, it has happened several times and I don't think it's just me.

Labour speakers or politicians, that is. It never happens when some rabid rightwinger is flinging his spittle around.

The more pessimistic side thinks that it actually betrays a feeling that he's still practising for the job.

Kind of. Ed Milliband still gives off the impression he still believes he's a student and has always avoided any grown up responsibility. (marriage, birth certificate etc)
In contrast David Cameron has not, and so even though he is only a couple of years older than Ed, they could be father and son there is that much difference between them.

Think this is certainly interested RE what kind of previous role would make a party leader suited to the job in terms of their oration. Cameron was famously a PR so perhaps better at charming and blagging? What do others think about public speaking and how various roles influence the way we speak?

Are the BBC and the Guardian trying to drive Ed out knowing he cant win an election against Cameron?

I read that he speaks the way he does because he has a deviated sphincter.

I couldn't agree more with this blog. It was excruciating to listen to Ed Milliband this morning - the ideas he did manage to express were good ones - a £6k tuition fee rather than £9,000 with the cut funding by axing the tax cut for banks, for example. But he seems to find it almost impossible to explain what he is thinking.
Humphries pointed out the obvious - to be a leader you don't just need good ideas, you need to be able to convince other people of them and carry them along with you. On this performance it doesn't look like Milliband will ever succeed.

Surely that is the Labour Party members' job?

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Miliband barely got to finish a single sentence before Humphrys butted in.

Perhaps he adopts a similar style when interviewing other party leaders - in which case he should stop, because it's a complete waste of time.

Humphrys interview style is to "have a go" at whoever or whatever is in front of him. But because it's based on no analysis of or understanding of what's being said it's both ineffectual and offensive. It doesn't even come across as impartial because what the individual sees is Humphrys letting the bad guys off the hook by missing the point while being unjustifiably rude to your own side.

The overall effect is of a blowhard pub cynic who'll declare "they're all as bad as each other" to anyone who'll listen as if it was a piece of profound political insight.

Perhaps he went to the same seminary as the Rev. Blair.
It's awful, so utterly insincere, pompous and contrived.

The voice is better now. Since having had his adenoids removed he does at least sound grown up.

Nonsense. You must have too much time on your hands so please don't inflict this on. There is also a problem with blogging with space to fill and nothing more meaningful to write about. If you having nothing to say please don't say it. I'm disappointed with the Guardian sponsoring this sort of thing too. John Humphreys gets more and more irritating - he won't stop talking and a list of questions that could have been written by Tory HQ.

"...only people who think and care about language, such as journalists..."

What are you talking about? The sloppy writing by journalists in this newspaper (it wasn't always so; Guardian journalists used, once, to write good English) and on the BBC is a source of daily irritation. I have become amazed by how little people whose business is words seem to care about English usage.

Deviated septum is the term for which you so deliberately unsuccessfully groped - I have the same thing, but don't sound like Miliband. I think the way he speaks is a problem, although not as much of a problem as what he says when he does. The way he comes across reflects what he was - a special advisor whose role is to mediate the words of his leader and sell them to the world with which the leader doesn't deign to deal.

He still has to do this - and he probably DOES 'have to' do it - because he's leading his very own coalition, any faction of which could knife him in the kidneys at any time; he's trying to keep them all on board, to mix metaphors a touch, while half of them are nailing a plank to the side of the vessel for him to walk. Not a comfortable position to be in, but - there's only one way out of it; that's to ditch his Blairite apparatchiks, find himself a Bernard Ingham/Alastair Campbell equivalent, and become the bastard every party leader needs to be, quashing dissent wherever he finds it if he can't speedily win the dissenters over.

It's this 'strong leader' approach the world seems to like; we don't like 'nice', assuming it means 'infeffectual'. In times of uncertainty such as these, this is more true than ever. Blair pulled off the trick of appearing to be a consensus politician when he wasn't; but letting us know, through subtly coded messages, that he really wasn't - and he had Campbell to hand in case we mistook him. I don't want Miliband to go the way of Blair, but he needs to find an identity which frightens Cameron/Clegg and impresses the rest of us - by, eg, dropping the horribly laboured jokes worked on by guttering candlelight in the early hours; saying less but saying it more effectively by concentrating on detail AND developing the capacity to put that over in a way which isn't just tedious; and dropping, oh please dropping, the faux-matiness, 'pretty straightforward sort of guy' bull-droppings that Blair perfected until one wanted to string him up with piano wire.

I don't want, and don't think most of us want, a party leader who sounds like an insurance salesman trying to flog a bog-standard industry product while pretending it's a real winner that will protect you and your loved ones in the god-forbid circumstances which none of us wants to mention..... Trying to shift that sort of snake-oil makes you look shifty, not confident, ingratiating, not trustworthy; and in reply to some, if those who want him to succeed don't point this out, no one else will other than in terms which aren't intended to be helpful, just abusive.

I think a more general version of you point is more accurate. Senior politicians on both sides are these days drawn from a route that goes University/ party apparatchik; SPAD; safe-seat MP, front bench. In other words, they are steeped in political discourse from young adult-hood onwards and they adopt its idiom and they adopt the changes in this idiom when these occur. New Labour started using "robust" as a byword for adequate/good - now it is the tag for these on practically everything.

It jars with MIliband, I think, because, like Brown he is not a natural actor. It is all very obviously self-fashioned, artificial and learned. In some ways this is to his credit and discredit. He is not a natural actor (like Blair perhaps) and may be more genuine essentially. But on the other hand, he should, therefore, stop trying to act and resort to a natural persona. But after 20 years in the political hothouse - does he actually have one left?

Ed has a few annoying "isms"; many of which are recongizable to me from my career spent among Americans.
"He just doesn't get it" instead of "He doesn't understand it"
"Bring it on"
"It speaks to............."

But today he produced a new one out of the bag, which seems to be straight out of Julian and Sandy from Round the Horne........."It's part of the atmos" !!
FFS!!!!!!

Milliband seems to use the phrase "What I say to you is" as both a prefix to a soundbite and also as a delaying tactic usually preceded by a "well.." whenever he is asked something uncomfortable.

A simple silence to frame his reply would be more effective.

That's questionable, Polly. If I had the time to trawl through Humphry's interviews, I'm pretty certain I could find plenty of exceptions. What's disappointing, even annoying, for the listener though is that he seems to have elevated it to a default virtue in his interview technique - it must be used at all costs, seems to be his mantra. And this very much to the frustration of listeners who want to hear the interviewee. Over the past two years I've noticed a steep rise in the number of complaints about this on Today's FB page and worse still, these complaints are directed more and moe at the other presenters too.

On the main issue of the article, as a linguist I tend to agree. It is an odd, unnatural speech formulation - it's almost as if he's enacting what he's going to say before sayng it, as if he were reading out the stage directions before saying his lines.

Might be reading it on-line now, but have been buying it regularly for over 3 years. Going to cancel my Saturday order with the newsagents today.

I thought that too. The sound was poor,whereas that sports commentators comment about Jedward was loud and clear.